The $552.50 Movie Ticket

As I write this version of the NPT newsletter, it is early Friday morning, and I am on board an Air Canada Airbus 330 enroute from Vancouver to Toronto. I plan to spend a few days in Toronto with family and friends before flying to Washington, D.C. to speak at Yanik Silver's Underground seminar.

We've been in the air for 20 minutes, are now zooming along at 499 miles per hour, and expect to arrive in Toronto in about 4 hours.

Usually at this point in a flight, I would be comfortably settled, and looking forward to a 'tasty' airline breakfast.

I could also be engrossed in the latest issue of Revenue magazine, or reading "The Best American Travel Writing 2004" and adding exotic destinations to my travel wish list.

So, why am I writing (read 'working'), instead of reading and relaxing?

... because I have to pay for this new laptop! :-)

Actually, I want to play with my friends this weekend without interruption or worrying about deadlines, so it's a good investment of my time.

Unfortunately, many folks are unable to convince themselves that 'ahead of the game' investments are worth it. They work to the wire, or worse, don't do the work at all.

For example, I offered Joel, my dear and valued assistant, an opportunity to earn recurring income from sales of an ebook that was to be offered on my dating service review sites.

Here's what happened...

The author sent me a review copy of this ebook in early January.

Doing his job, Joel intercepted the email and did a cursory review of the book.

He then wrote and told me that it was excellent, and that it would be a worthwhile addition to my siteS.

The timing was absolutely perfect for a review to be written and uploaded to the site in plenty of time to take advantage of increasing traffic as Valentine's Day approached.

My schedule was full, so I asked Joel if he would be willing to write the review and split all future commissions from the sale of the book.

He accepted, and agreed to have the book review ready sometime before Valentine's Day.

It's now April, but you won't find Joel's book review on any of my dating sites.

Why is that?

Was the book not as good as Joel originally reported? Nope. He was absolutely correct about its excellent content.

Is it because Joel is not a writer? Well, if you've ever written to ask me a question and received a response from Joel, you know that Joel has an exceptional command of the language - even if he does forget to use his spellchecker, and occassionally swaps 'their' for 'there'. :-)

Is Joel lazy? Absolutely not! When I ask Joel to do something for me, it gets done on time.

So, why didn't he write the review?

I didn't specify the year!

Nah.... that's not it either.

As I see it, although Joel's business is home and Internet-based, he works from the perspective of an employee, not an entrepeneur.

Workers trade their time for money. Had I offered to pay Joel to write the review, I'm fairly certain that it would have finished on schedule.

However, because Joel was writing the review in anticipation of future commissions, he may have feared wasting his time if no one bought the book.

So, is that a logical fear?

Well, let's check some facts and do a little math.

It would take Joel about two hours to write the review. If Joel charges 100/hour for his web development services, his investment would have been about two hundred bucks worth of his time.

The book sells for $49.95 US with a 50/50 author/affiliate commission split. If Joel and I split the affiliate commission 50/50, we would each earn 11.08 per sale, after the Clickbank fees are applied. To break even for time spent writing the review, we would need to sell 18.05 books.

So, would the book actually sell?

Of course it would!

The book is relevant to single guys and therefore a perfect match for a huge portion of my dating site's audience. Joel is a single guy, who read and liked the book. As a sympathetic reader, and an excellent writer, he's a perfect reviewer for this book.

The review would have been presented to 100,000+ 'Singles eScene' subscribers just before Valentine's Day.

It would also have been posted on my dating service review sites. As my assistant, Joel is aware that those sites receive thousands of unique visitors per day, and that the sites earn tens of thousands in revenue each month.

The review would remain posted as long as the book is available and relevant. Because dating is a perennial topic, the book is unlikely therefore to become irrelevant or stale for years to come - if ever.

My most conservative estimate - and I do mean conservative - tells me that we would have sold 50 books in that first mailing ! Fifty sales represents only .0005 percent of 100,000 whereas such a mailing could be reasonably expected to convert at least .5 percent, or 500 book sales!

So, Joel would have earned $552.50, using the most consertive estimate. Five hundred sales = $5,525.00, or 2,762.50 per hour... a little better than his usual rate, eh?

I would also expect to sell 5 - 10 books a month generating further revenues for Joel of between 55.00 and 110.00 per month.

All in all, that is a darned fine return on a two-hour investment of time.

So, what did Joel do with that two hours instead of writing the review? Did he watch a movie? If so, that was a mighty expensive ticket!

So, if you are wondering whether to watch that movie, or write a product review for your site, just picture Joel weeping into his cornflakes as he reads this newsletter, and you'll have your answer.

Oh ya, the book in question is "28 SureFire Ways To Instant Dating Success" by Simon Heong. If you're a single guy, check it out. Joel tells me that it's very, very good! :-)

'Til next time, read (write) and prosper!

Rosalind

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Rosalind Gardner is author of the best-selling "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in ONE Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online.

Super Affiliate Handbook